“You’re mistaken,” Qube said, careful not to move into Mr. Clockwork’s line of sight. “The village was destroyed, not the villagers.”

“Every soul lost,” Mr. Clockwork said mournfully.

“They weren’t,” Qube snapped, stepping forward. Mr. Clockwork froze. Qube nearly bit her tongue in frustration, but forced herself to move behind the automaton.

“All your friends and family,” Mr. Clockwork said eventually. “It’s so tragic. You’ll have to avenge them, Chosen One.”

The terrible sense of dread that surrounded Qube pressed against her. She closed her eyes, and willed herself to stay calm. No. He was wrong. It was as simple as that. He had made a terrible mistake. Why, he couldn’t even look at her when he was saying such things! He must be malfunctioning. Maybe he had to go back to Construct Crossroads and get fixed up.

“I gave Mr. Igma a letter to give to them,” she said, her eyes still closed. “You need to give them the letter. You need to go to the village and you’ll see that they’re all fine. They are rebuilding. They are fine.”

She was serene. The fear surrounded her, but she was protected. That inner flame, the drive that had brought her this far, spread out, sheltered her. It was her own mental [Lesser Shield], driving back the darkness before it could overwhelm her.

“Such a tragedy,” Mr. Clockwork said.

The shield cracked.

“You have made a mistake,” Qube said. “We have to go investigate. Everyone is fine.” She took a deep breath, rebuilding her inner fortification until it was once again flawless.

“Sometimes I think I can still hear the sounds of village life. Ah, if only we had known then how fragile such a peace had been!”

This was ridiculous. Mr. Clockwork was, as the Chosen One would say, glitched. She wouldn’t even bother the Hero with such a petty thing! She would just dash to the village, quick as can be, and then meet him back at the inn before he even knew she was gone. Then she would be able to see how everyone was safe, and no one would have had to worry about anything, and she could even bring the other Potentials and then everyone would be happy to see everyone and they would all be friends because everything was fine.

Qube opened her eyes, and realised that her hand was outstretched, like she’d been about to grab hold of Mr. Clockwork. There was no sign of the mechanical man. She wasn’t sure when he’d left. She hadn’t heard him walk away. How rude of him to not say goodbye. Another sign he was malfunctioning. The Mr. Clockwork she knew would never leave without getting all the gossip. Maybe her [Heal]ing him had caused this. She would have to apologise.

They would laugh about it later, once she returned from the village and he’d been repaired.

She put one foot in front of the other. She felt lightheaded as she watched her own feet moving. It was like Mr. Clockwork had made her into a construct, too. Flawless, automotive, she was moving without feeling a thing.

One foot in front of another. Again, and again. That was it. She would have to hurry, though; it would take some time to gather the potentials and bring them back from the village before the Chosen One realised she was late. Faster. Faster. Suddenly she was running, nearly stumbling as she burst out of Cobbletown gate, her eyes burning. She raced through the rolling green hills, retracing that path they’d taken so long ago, before they’d met everyone else, when she’d been so full of fear and self doubt.

She felt like she was being held back, her limbs growing heavy, and the edges of her vision becoming jagged. It was like the world was chugging, ripping at the seams, struggling to let her through. She couldn’t breathe. She pushed back, forcing her way forward, desperately pulling power from her inner fire, that spark that never failed.

Numbers flashed before her.

She tore through the resistance, the world suddenly flying by as she ran home. Sooner than she would have thought possible, she was at the woods that had encircled her entire childhood, standing in the spot where the Chosen One had woken her up and told her the villagers had survived.

Where their adventure had started.

The track that led back home twisted into the woods. She was shaking as she stepped on it. She couldn’t think. She was just moving. Everything would be fine. Silly Mr. Clockwork. He was so broken. She would see in a second.

The path turned a corner, and she was standing next to a blue Save Point. Beyond her, stretching out, was the landscape she’s known her entire life. The flat plains ending in gentle hills, cut through with a bubbling river.

And overlaying it all was death.

The houses she’d grown up around had been reduced to charred, wooden bones. Craters were blasted in the community vegetable patch, the land ripped apart. In a way, she’d been right. The villagers were, indeed, there.

What remained of them.

Sickened, she turned away from the grisly scene. She swallowed hard, trying to keep herself together. The fear she’d been trying to outrun caught up to her, and she shook as everything seemed to dim. The sensation of dread, wrongness, raged around her like a storm, and she cowered behind her mental shield, a beacon of light in the sudden darkness that invaded her mind.

She had to find the Chosen One and tell him. Someone must have come back and killed the villagers after they’d left! Someone under the Evil Emperor’s orders, no doubt, who had waited until they weren’t protecting the village anymore.

That’s what must have happened.

That’s it! That has to be it! She clung to the thought desperately. She just had to tell the Chosen One, and he would find a way to fix this. He would be just as horrified as her. They would grieve, together, and find some way to make this right.

But deep down she knew.

She knew.

Within her mind’s eye, she saw, and finally understood. The Chosen One next to her in the woods outside the village after the attack, eating that stupid jam. He’d hesitated before telling her that everyone was safe. He’d so clearly been lying, but she had believed him. She’d wanted to believe him.

Her shield cracked.

His awkwardness when she’d spoken of sending a letter home. Of any time she spoke about the village, or going there, or the other Potential Chosen Ones joining them. How he’d dismissed the idea, tried to talk her out of it, changed the subject, always dancing around the topic, trying to keep her distracted long enough that she wouldn’t notice the lies he was spinning.

She’d wanted to be distracted. Because they were Good, and he was her friend, and asking questions only got the same answers, because she wasn’t supposed to know things, but that was fine because the Chosen One was special and her job, her reason for existence was to protect him, and he had to protect the world.

He did what had to be done. But he wouldn’t do this to her.

He was her friend.

Another memory hit.

The Shadow Temple. His shadow. Talking of his failures. Of death. Of a her.

The look of grim determination on the Chosen One’s face as he silenced his shadow, ramming his blade into his other self’s mouth.

The Chosen One knew.

He knew.

And he’d lied to her. Time and again, he’d lied to her. She’d trusted him. Of course she’d trusted him! He was the Chosen One. She’d been told her entire life that he was going to save the world, that the Golden Prophecy was going to choose their saviour, that the Chosen One was the most fundamentally Good person in existence.

The Chosen One was Good.

And he didn’t trust her enough to tell her the truth.

What did that make her?

Within the depths of the darkness surrounding her, she saw her reflection. Hair now dead white, dressed in black, a line across her throat. She looked into her own eyes, and all she saw was death. Her inverted reflection reached out, and gently laid a palm against her shield. A web of fractures spread from her touch, and the shield splintered.

“No,” Qube rejected the apparition. That wasn’t her. She was a Childhood Companion. Happy, bright, helpful.

There had to be an explanation for why he hadn’t told her the truth. There had to be. She held that hope, cradled in her hands, as she slowly sank to her knees.

“I trust him,” she whispered to that flame of hope, the last light within her. That blaze, the one thing that had never failed her. “Everyone is fine. Everything will be fine. I’ll be fine. Please,” she begged the nothingness, “let everything be fine.”

The darkness of despair stretched out before her, endless and all consuming. Still she knelt by that flame, her flame, that flickered with her heartbeat.

“Please,” she whispered, alone in the dark. “Please. I promise I’ll be Good. Just let everything be fine. Please.”

---

She couldn’t say how long she stayed there, kneeling in the ruins of her childhood. After some time, she felt as if she were being watched, from very far away. Not anything sinister, just a sensation of awareness.

The Save Point next to her flared, and from the bright blue light, the Chosen One emerged.

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t move. She didn’t know what to say or do. So she just did nothing. The Chosen One stood there, looking out at the village, and then at her. After a few moments he sat down next to her, and just looked out over the vista of destruction. He’d been sitting there for a long time before the thought bubbled up in her head: she should probably say something to help ease the tension.

She ignored the thought. The day drifted on. Dusk was starting to creep in when he shifted positions, and it was like that movement snapped something within her.

“You knew,” she said, her voice devoid of any emotion.

“Yes,” he replied.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked. Her world waited on his answer.

“I didn’t think it would be important,” he said. His hands, resting on his knees, clenched into fists. Her world crumbled.

“You didn’t think it would be important?” she asked, vibrating with wrath. She finally looked at him, but he was just staring out at what had once been their home. Her home.

“I didn’t understand,” he quietly replied.

“How can you not understand?” she asked. Trauma, shock, he’d just witnessed everyone they’d ever known or loved die, she should be more compassionate, she should comfort him. Qube ruthlessly shoved those thoughts aside.

“I didn’t think,” he explained. “I didn’t know. And by the time I did realise how important it was, how much it mattered, it was too late. How could I tell you then?”

“Not important?” she asked again.

“I messed up,” he said, looking at her and flashing that crooked smile, that now heart-achingly familiar expression. “But then I kept telling myself that, as long as you didn’t know, it was fine. I could fix it. Once it was all over, I could make things right again. Well, the others could.” He looked down at his clenched fists. “I only really seem to be good at breaking things.”

She didn’t care about his feelings. For the first time in her life, she couldn’t bring herself to care that he was clearly in pain.

“You lied to me,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking back at her. “I know it’s not worth much, but I’m really, truly sorry. I care about you. More than I ever thought I would. And I promise you, I will make things right. I will bring back the villagers. All of them. I swear it.”

“You only care about them being dead because it hurts me,” Qube said, with a flash of insight. “You’re not sad about them, you’re sad because I am.”

The Chosen One looked at her, startled.

“These people we grew up with, everyone we loved, they’re all dead and you didn’t think it was important,” Qube said, staring at the man next to her like he was a stranger.

He was a stranger.

“But you didn’t grow up with them, did you?” she asked, as a truth she’d been unable to see, a puzzle she’d refused to solve, clicked into place.

“You’re not my friend.”